Cycle 4 – Item 320
21 (Thu) November 2013
Beef Phanaeng Curry
2.0
at Sala Thai
-Jeongja, Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with W and Dad
Earlier in the afternoon, W dropped by to visit her mother-in-law, who’s recuperating in the hospital. Dad arrived a bit later. After we’d tended to the patient’s needs, the three visitors went out for dinner.
Phanaeng is a type of Thai curry. It’s red and creamy. Unlike kaeng phet, which is red and spicy. The name “phanaeng/penang/paneng” possibly may be derived from the Malaysian state Penang, famed for its cuisine, including creamy curries.
Frankly, due to sheer inexperience, I still get the Thai/Cambodian curries mixed up, which all seem kinda the same except for the color (red/green/yellow). Same with Indian/Sri Lankan curries.
The phanaeng at Sala Thai was good, I think, except the beef was a bit too chewy.
When I asked the manager for takeout containers for the remaining sauces, both the phanaeng and the soy-garlic from the phak boong fai daeng, she looked at me with a frown and asked why. My father, who has never ever ever in my presence made a joke along such lines, interjected with: “He’s a chef, trying to steal your recipe.” She started stammering that the chef had acquired the phanaeng paste from Thailand, so it’d be impossible to replicate with local ingredients yada yada. It took a minute to convince her that I wasn’t an industrial spy, just a resourceful home cook who wanted to use the leftover sauces to make stir-fries for dinner.
(See also BOOZE)
(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)
(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)
